


No Rose in this Garden

by Dan_Francisco



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Blake Belladonna Needs a Hug, Gen, Memories, One-sided Ruby Rose/Blake Belladonna, Pining, Prompt Fill, oops! all angst, photograph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29292177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: A typical day delivers blues when Blake comes across an old photo on her Scroll.
Kudos: 12
Collections: Fanworks Club Monthly Prompts





	No Rose in this Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Promptfill for the Fanworks Club discord. I chose the "Photograph" prompt for this!

In a way, Blake had always liked the sea. Never enough that she’d want to go to the beach and spend an afternoon there, but the idea of living by the coast and seeing the waves break on the shore sounded appealing. There was just something innately _calming_ about how the ocean swayed back and forth, how the salt water brought refreshing breezes, and the way the world seemed to hold its breath to listen to all the tales and advice the Southern Sea had to offer.

Blake remembered this part of the trip being particularly stormy last time she made this journey, back when she had first left Menagerie and set out to change the world. Or, at least, she thought it was changing the world. In reality it was running away. Running away from her past. Running away from her problems.

Running away from people she loved.

Blake wasn’t sure when exactly she had pulled out her Scroll and began idly thumbing through apps, sites and messages in the hopes of finding something interesting. Anything to catch her attention and make the rest of the journey back home bearable. She looked through a few news sites, but discarded them fairly quickly when the first handful of headlines were dominated by rampant speculation about the night Beacon fell. Reading old group texts just made her wistful for the “good old days,” whatever that meant now.

Her finger paused over a picture that she had sent to Ruby once. She could remember the day she took it like it was yesterday. They were still in their first – and only – year at Beacon, some time either before or during the Vytal Tournament, when she and Ruby had a rare quiet moment together. Blake remembered that she knew full well Ruby and Jaune were dating and that there was almost no way to break that bond between them. That hadn’t stopped Blake from daydreaming about confessing everything to her and proposing an absurd getaway that only ever made sense in her head. It hadn’t prevented her from glancing Ruby’s way during class to see her prepared with a smile.

It definitely hadn’t stopped her from taking a picture with Ruby, the two of them leaning against one another like they were happily in love and smiling like the world couldn’t take a damn thing from them. Ruby did the same thing in this photo that she did in _every_ picture ever taken of her, where she put her fingers in a “V” shape and held them next to her eye.

Blake had heavily considered telling Ruby everything that day. How much she _really_ cared. How beautiful she looked. How much Blake wished that she had said something earlier, that they could share in all the things that Ruby undoubtedly had shared with Jaune. In the end she hadn’t, giving in to stay silent and not wanting to be “that girl” that tried to get in the way of a relationship that seemed perfect.

How long had it even been since she had talked to Ruby? Blake couldn’t remember. She knew she had left without a word, not even a “goodbye,” just… abandoned them. Abandoned Yang, Ruby, and Weiss like she hadn’t just spent a year living with them. The things Blake wanted to say but couldn’t would fill a book. If she had been just a little bit braver, then maybe at least some of it could have been said.

Blake sighed. She could feel her entire expression dropping, like she had fallen into a hole and couldn’t see the top. Looking back on that day through the lens of a picture she could recall what it felt like to be _happy,_ to just exist and be in the moment. Now, though? The emotions felt empty, like she was putting on a mask and pretending. Calling upon the feelings and thoughts that floated through her life before Beacon’s fall was more like performing in a play she knew by heart and had grown bored of, going through the motions without any of the dramatic flair that being an actress required.

Of course, she knew all too well what it felt like to cry. Her eyes were watery and vision turned glassy before she realized it. The image of her and Ruby happily smiling and posting became broken, fractured like her life had become in the year since. She missed Yang’s stupid jokes. She missed Weiss’s bad advice. She missed being around people that could make her laugh without fail.

She missed Ruby.

The tears rolled down her face like they were racing each other, desperate to reach the corners of her mouth. Feeling happy might have felt like an act, but feeling sad was all too familiar and real. No acting this time. She pinched the bridge of her nose as if it’d help her get over this while a knot formed in her throat. Her shoulders shuddered like she’d just been chilled by the coldest wind, If there was a way to describe her sobbing other than staccato hiccups, she wasn’t sure what the words were.

Once, Blake had promised herself she’d never look back on these moments by moonlight. The night had darkness on its side, where any scenario she looked back on would slide into depression and force her to confront the idea she never wanted to, that Blake and Blake alone was to blame for all of her problems. Today it was high noon, far beyond the reaches of the night and its inescapable gloom, and yet here she was, climbing a landslide. How could one small memory trigger this?

Through her tears, Blake promised that one day she’d tell Ruby everything. It didn’t matter anymore if Ruby felt the same way or not. She had to get it out there, let it go like releasing a balloon. Maybe then, she’d be able to prevent this again in the future. Maybe it’d all work out.

Or, maybe, she was delusional and it’d end terribly for her, just like everything else in her life.


End file.
